" 'Shlee, can you please do my papers for me?" Katherine whined at her.
"Ashley, let your sister go to her friend's house," her mother said. Ordered, more like. Behind Mrs. Hennessey's back, Ashley's younger sister stuck out her tongue and started tying up her converses.
Ashley rolled her eyes. Her mother never knew what a little ass Katherine could be. All she saw was the cute little twelve-year-old who looked to be about nine. She couldn't hear her annoying habit of She couldn't see the snobby, spoiled little brat that lay just under the skin. Sometimes that pissed Ashley off. But she was grounded, and she needed to get out of the house. Badly. Before she snapped and killed Katherine. She didn't want to end up in jail, and the idea kept getting more and more appealing.
She slung the barely-full bag over her shoulder (luckily the papers were thin that day) and headed out the door, cranking up the volume on her iPod and "accidentally" knocking Katherine down the stairs.
"Oops, did I do that?" she asked sweetly, but couldn't hear Katherine's response, whatever it was.
Well, not until Katherine yanked an earbud out of her ear, that is.
"You know the big old house that was being restored? The loner house?" she asked.
Ashley nodded. She knew the one. It was a good distance away from the other homes in the area, a few minutes of fast walking down a dirt road. Recently she'd seen moving trucks and vans with trailers frequenting it. Or frequenting the dirt road, at least. It kept going past the house, but she'd never bothered to follow it.
"Well, they started a subscription the other day."
Oh. So Ashley had to walk out to the house every day Katherine was gone? The normal twenty-eight papers was fine when it was raining (thought it was only drizzling at the moment, thank the Lord), but she'd add about ten minutes of walking with that house. Ten minutes more of being soaked through. Lovely.
Before she could respond, Katherine spotted her friend's car, and darted down the road, waving an arm in the air. Ashley just huffed and set out.
The dirt road to the new house was the closest to her own home, so she took that road first, knowing she'd need the five minutes of cooling off before she had to talk to anyone.
She pulled her iPod out of her pocket and attempted to watch a Dane Cook video while walking, but when she stumbled and fell (it was totally the bag's fault, it threw her off-balance), she decided that maybe that wasn't a good idea. Instead she turned on some music.
By that point her mood had already improved by ninety percent, and you could tell it from the music she listened to. Instead of listening to Linkin Park and Jack's Mannequin, she was listening to Ok Go and Motion City Soundtrack. And she was singing along. She'd have to remember to stop that before she got close to the house. She didn't want people hearing her sing. It wasn't that she couldn't sing. She just couldn't sing while she knew people were listening, with only one exception. Her best friend Mel had heard her sing many times. They had a fairly popular YouTube channel, and would frequently post videos of Ashley singing while Mel played the guitar or piano. Their favorite was Coldplay's 'Clocks'.
She rounded a bend on the road and saw the driveway. It was a long driveway, she remembered, so she let herself finish the chorus and then closed her mouth.
The house was much more beautiful than she'd remembered it being. There had been something about it before, when it was crumbling-a romantic feeling in the air, she supposed. The person who had restored it had obviously felt that too. The blacks and whites that somehow seemed harsh on any other house felt right here. And she was certain the boy reading a novel on the balcony had something to do with it.
From a distance she could see that he was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans. But when she came closer, her eyes could not move from his face.
It was the most beautiful face she'd ever seen, and very extreme. Each feature was perfection. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, to see if she was really seeing him. It would be like her to imagine a boy to go along with the romantic image of the house. She was grateful she was too far to reach out to his face, as she probably would have.
As she approached, he looked up from his book and smiled at her. There was something frightening about him. Even though he seemed to radiate friendliness, some buried instinct was telling Ashley to run, and fast. She realized that he was wearing a white wifebeater, not a long-sleeved shirt-he was so pale that she hadn't been able to see the difference, but now she could.
The boy stood, and his ebony hair fell in front of his face, brushing his cheekbones. He seemed to be her age, but had a good four inches on her, at least. Ashley could imagine herself standing on her toes and wrapping her fingers in his hair as he leaned down towards her-
"Hello," he said, still smiling at her. His voice sounded...like a cashmere sweater felt. Like vanilla ice cream tasted. Like baking bread smelled. Like pure, incomparable bliss.
Ashley blinked, trying to clear her thoughts. "Um, hi."
'Um, hi'? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? She could do SO much better! 'Um, hi...' What a disgrace.
The boy chuckled. "I think you have something for me.." he said.
Ashley frowned. Something...for him?
Right. Newspaper. Okay.
"Oh. Yeah. That." She laughed, and reached into her bag to grab a newspaper. She handed it to him, and his eyes scanned the headlines.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," Ashley said, turning to go.
She felt a hand on her arm, through her sweater, and was pulled around to face the boy.
"Brandon Cullen," he said. He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her forehead. Blinking didn't clear her thoughts. "I'm Brandon Cullen," he said a bit slower, as if she hadn't understood.
But she understood well. It was the forming of her own name she was having trouble with.
"A-Ashley Hennessey. Sister of your papergirl."
"Sister of the papergirl? Well, maybe I'll see you around anyways," Brandon said, turning around and heading through the front door before she could think of an appropriate response, or any response. She stood for a minute, dazed, and then turned to leave the house in which the beautiful boy resided.
A/N: So, how was it? Good? Bad? Should I continue? This is my first piece of fanfiction, so I don't know...anything, really. Tell me in a review if there was something you liked. PLEASE tell me in a review if there was something you didn't like, so I can fix it.
Thank you for reading this chapter, at least! More when I get the chance to write it.
-Megan